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Police identify woman killed by train Saturday night

by Leyla Santiago
Saturday, October 31, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Police identified the woman struck and killed by a train Saturday night a quarter mile south of the Rabbit Creek Rifle Range. Officials say the train's crew blew the horn, but 72-year-old Joyce Kusmider did not move out of its way.

While police are still investigating the sequence of events that led to Friday's collision, more details are surfacing about the victim.

Kusmider's family describes her as an active 72-year-old: always on the go, loved to travel -- and loved taking pictures. That could explain why the train's engineer reports seeing a flash shortly before spotting Kusmider on the tracks around 7 p.m. Saturday.

The Alaska Railroad says the crew tried to stop the train, but it was all too late. Kusmider was on the Cook Inlet side of the train tracks, facing the inlet, while the coal train was coming into Anchorage from Seward -- on Kusmider's left.

Her family says she could not hear out of her left ear, but there are no indications at this point if that played a factor. The family visited the crash scene Sunday morning to lay down her favorite flowers and are still in shock.

"You'll always be searching for answers. You'll never get them, but you'll always search for them, you know," said Peggy Guanlao, Kusmider's daughter. "But -- it's not the way I thought my mom was going to pass on."

"She was only a couple of railroad cars ahead of where the train actually was, moving about 45 mph," said Anchorage Police Department spokesperson Lt. Dave Parker. "So they applied emergency brakes immediately, but trains are very large and they take a long ways to stop."

Kusmider's car was parked next to the railroad track and was filled with personal belongings. Investigators also found a camera at the scene.

Contact Leyla Santiago at lsantiago@ktuu.com